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I always try try to stay positive. This may have a chance. They will have to fight hard but it is their future. Not mine. I fought for 50 years. Now it is someone else’s turn. Good luck. God speed. Your only planet depends on it. We got no place else to go.

The Green New Deal, explained

An insurgent movement is pushing Democrats to back an ambitious climate change solution.

If the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to be believed, humanity has just over a decade to get carbon emissions under control before catastrophic climate change impacts become unavoidable.

The Republican Party generally ignores or denies that problem. But the Democratic Party claims to accept and understand it.

Their last big plan — the American Clean Energy and Security Act — passed the House in 2009 but went on to die an unceremonious death before reaching the Senate floor. Since then, there’s been nothing to replace it.

Plenty of Democratic politicians support policies that would reduce climate pollution — renewable energy tax credits, fuel economy standards, and the like — but those policies do not add up to a comprehensive solution, certainly nothing like what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests is necessary.

Young activists, who will be forced to live with the ravages of climate change, find this upsetting. So they have proposed a plan of their own. It’s called the Green New Deal (GND) — a term purposefully reminiscent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s original New Deal in the 1930s — and it has become the talk of the town. Here are Google searches from the past few months:

I have mixed feelings about this article. On one level the Corporations and the international concerns that are most responsible for Global Warming should be MADE to pay the price. Very little should be paid by Common People. Still Common People drive cars, heat their homes and work in places that pollute so they should pay a little. It’s the willingness to pay that bothers me. We should all be pulling in this together.

The Unprecedented Surge in Fear About Climate Change

A surging number of Americans understand that climate change is happening and believe that it could harm their family and the country, according to a new poll from Yale and George Mason University.

But at the same time, Americans are not any more willing to pay money to fight climate change than they were three years ago, says another new poll, conducted by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago.

The polls suggest that public opinion about climate change is in a state of upheaval. Even as President Donald Trump has cast doubt on climate change, most Americans have rejected his position. Record numbers of Americans describe climate change as a real and present danger. Nearly a quarter of the country says they already see its tidings in their day-to-day life, saying “personal observations of weather” helped convince them of climate change’s reality.

Despite this increasing acceptance, there is no clear political path forward. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes” were needed to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius. Such a transformation would be, in other words, expensive. But almost 70 percent of Americans say they wouldn’t pay $10 every month to help cool the warming planet.

Reuters reports that a homeowner could expect to save $19,000 in energy costs over 30 years, while Meritage Homes predicts reduced operating costs could amount to as much as $50,000-60,000 over a 25-year period.

First he hired Scott Pruitt to essentially undo everything that Bush and Obama had done. From Arsenic levels in your drinking water to the size and numbers of National Monuments. Then he signed an Executive Order approving Pipelines. Then he tried to roll back Auto Emissions. But it is in his public speeches that you get the true flavor of his derangement.

The President Is Ranting About Windmills and Birds While the Planet Slides Towards Calamity

“The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere … The sea off the north coast of Greenland is normally so frozen that it was referred to, until recently, as “the last ice area” because it was assumed that this would be the final northern holdout against the melting effects of a hotter planet.”

I dare you to Google: Climate Change and plant life or Climate Change and small mammals. Most people who protest Global Warming, that is – say it ain’t happening, talk about deserts shifting and extinctions leading to our vary own. They say that since those things aren’t happening, then Global Warming isn’t either. But in the beginning it will be increases in insect born diseases, increases in storm strength, and increases in drought. Here is just one example.

How Climate Change is Helping Invasive Species Take Over

Longer seasons and warmer weather have combined to be a game-changer in the plant wars

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the growing season in many areas of the lower 48 states has expanded by about two weeks. Frosts end earlier in the spring and begin later in the fall. To gardeners in Maine, Wisconsin and Montana, that might seem a blessing. What’s not to like about more lettuce or riper tomatoes?

The longer seasons, however, are also helping invasive plants annex American soil; extended springs mean they can more quickly push aside native species and transform ecosystems. “What’s interesting about climate change is that humans are effectively manipulating how species experience time,” says ecologist Elizabeth Wolkovich of the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia.

Wolkovich and her colleagues have been studying how the first flowering dates of plants have changed over the years in Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, D.C., Concord, Massachusetts—where Henry David Thoreau kept notes about the flowers blooming near Walden Pond in the mid-1800s—as well as Britain.

Over the years I have gotten 100s of requests to post links with other Blogs and Internet Sites that are related to the things that I post about; Sometimes tangentially. Sometimes very tangentially. Below I am going to try to post some of those with the text of the request where applicable or sometimes just the link.

I am only one guy by the way. That is it, Community Energy Systems and Energy Tough Love is just one guy with 900 bucks in the bank….so there is no way I can track down each post of mine and put the link on the page. Did I mention I was 63 years old. I would be dead by the time i did 10 or 20 post. Is some of this sarcastic? Well yah. But I never mean it spitefully. Please laugh with me not at me. Consider this:

Sometimes people even offer to write entire articles –

Hi!

There are more than 3 million teachers within the U.S. public school system. While some may plan on being work-free during summer break, others might enjoy – or need – to find a short-term job during that time.

As a retired teacher, I thought it would be fun to research and write about summer side gigs for teachers. (Side note: Many of these gigs, especially those that take advantage of the growing sharing economy, can also be worked into the school-year schedule.)

Is this something that would be of interest to your readers? If so, I would love the opportunity to write a guest article at no cost to you. Please let me know, and I’ll start writing.

As a teacher, you need a second job to make ends meet. But as an environmentalist, the idea of driving for Uber or running people’s errands through an on-demand app doesn’t appeal to you. You want to spend less time commuting in your car, not more. So what are the options? Here are five eco-conscious side gigs that teachers can work during the summer and year-round.

Walking Dogs

The school year leaves you sitting inside for most of the day. When summer hits, you want to get outdoors as much as possible. Walking dogs for friends and neighbors is a great excuse to spend time outdoors, and the pay isn’t bad either. According to CostHelper.com, the typical pay for a dog walker is $18 to $22 for a 30-minute walk. Because the gig comes with minimal overhead costs, most of that pay ends up in your pocket. Dog walkers can also offer pet sitting to boost their earning potential.

Building Custom Gardens

Everyone wants a gorgeous edible garden in their yard, but few want to put in the work. Start a business designing, building, and maintaining custom vegetable gardens in local backyards. You’ll help your neighbors eat healthier while reducing their carbon footprint, and you’ll enjoy a paying job that hardly feels like work. The only downside? There’s not much gardening to do during the winter months. However, teachers can offer winter yard maintenance to keep money flowing through the off-season.

Creating an Online Store

According to the Sierra Club, online shopping beats driving to the store when it comes to environmental impact. While boxes and packaging seem wasteful, one delivery truck driving from house to house spends less energy than each household making trips to the store. It’s easy to build an e-commerce website with drag-and-drop website builders, and you don’t have to create a unique product to open an online store. Many online stores earn money by dropshipping popular products like wireless headphones and phone cases from larger retailers. Offer a diversity of products or choose products with staying power so your store remains profitable for the long-term.

Flipping Second-Hand Goods

Our throwaway society has largely moved away from repairing broken goods, choosing instead to replace items the moment they cease to function. The result? Countless lightly used appliances, gadgets, and furniture items headed to the dump when they still have lots of life. If you’re handy and enjoy hunting for treasures, start a side business picking up broken items, repairing them, and reselling for profit. Yard sales and Craigslist are gold mines for free and cheap items in need of repair. Finance Superhero offers tips for getting started.

Blogging

Starting a blog is perfect for teachers who want to explore their interest in energy and environmentalism. Teachers can blog about topics they’re passionate about and generate income through ad revenue. A blog can also be a great platform for sharing information and selling lesson plans on environmentalism with other educators, who can then use the materials in their own classrooms.

Additionally, business ideas such as selling workwear, selfie drones, and electronics online have a smaller environmental impact than driving a rideshare, delivering groceries, or another sharing economy mainstay. They also have minimal start-up costs, so your business doesn’t take months or years to start generating profit like some small businesses. That’s important when your priority is increasing your income, not launching a new career. However, teachers shouldn’t assume their side gig is in the black. Diligent record keeping is key to ensuring you’re meeting your income goals and not putting more into a gig than you’re getting out.

There are many ways to earn an income on top of a full-time job. But if environmentalism is important to you, you may find it difficult to find a job that aligns with your values. While these five side gigs might not change the world, they’re practical ways for eco-conscious teachers to increase their income without increasing their carbon footprint.

All the capitalists care about is the money. So what if somebody dies making the power? So what if making the power kills someone? As long as they get their 100,000K profit or whatever it is. The numbers really have to mount before they even notice. Who cares if a “little person” dies, they were just taking up space anyway.

So my colleagues and I calculated the health impact of generating electricity through offshore wind turbines – which until now the U.S. has barely begun to do.

Greening the Grid

New England gets almost none of its electricity from burning coal and more than three-quarters of it from burning natural gas and operating nuclear reactors. The rest is from hydropower and from renewable energy, including wind and solar power and the burning of wood and refuse.

This is what it is like at the end of a power source. People can hardly wait to get away from coal and on to something else. I say, GOOD FOR THEM. Coal is no longer competitive. No matter how they try to stand in the way coal supporters, including Dotard in Chief, will always lose. Can you say, dust bin of history.

On Navajo land in Arizona, a coal plant and coal mine that have devastated the environment are being replaced by solar–with both enormous benefits and local drawbacks that can serve as a lesson for how the rest of the country will need to manage the transition to renewables.

In the desert near Arizona’s border with Utah on the Navajo Nation, a massive solar array built in 2017 now provides power for around 18,000 Navajo homes. Nearby, construction will begin later this year on a second solar plant. And on another corner of Navajo land, the largest coal plant west of the Mississippi River is preparing to close 25 years ahead of schedule, despite some last-minute attempts to save it.

“Those two [solar] plants really are the beginning of an economic transition,” says Amanda Ormond, managing director of the Western Grid Group, an organization that promotes clean energy.

The coal plant, called the Navajo Generating Station, was built in the 1970s to provide power to growing populations in Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada. A nearby coal mine supplies the power plant with coal. As recently as 2014, the coal plant wasn’t expected to close until 2044–a date negotiated with the EPA to reduce air pollution. But reduced demand for coal, driven both by economics and climate action, means that the plant is scheduled to close in 2019 instead. The coal mine, run by Peabody Energy, will be forced to follow.

This method of generation will only go up from here. But here is something most people don’t consider, at sea drilling for oil and wind farms are incompatible. You can not drill anywhere near wind turbines because of the possibility of oil spills. There is a good chance those spills would ignite. That is not the case with other spills or even explosions and fires. Because they are easily put out. But when you have an electrical source, those fires are guaranteed and would be difficult to extinguish. So all you have to do to stop off shore drilling is build wind farms. Mark my words, when some hotshot wind person builds a wind farm over a proven oil deposit, oil is dead.

After an Uncertain Start, U.S. Offshore Wind Is Powering Up

After years of delays, the U.S. offshore wind industry is finally gaining momentum, with new projects being planned along the Atlantic coast. So far, the Trump administration seems to be regarding offshore wind as one form of renewable energy it can support.

This summer, the Norwegian energy company, Statoil, will send a vessel to survey a triangular slice of federal waters about 15 miles south of Long Island, where the company is planning to construct a wind farm that could generate up to 1.5 gigawatts of electricity for New York City and Long Island — enough to power roughly 1 million homes. Construction on the “Empire Wind” project, with scores of wind turbines generating electricity across 79,000 acres of leased federal waters, is scheduled to begin in 2023, with construction completed in 2025.

Farther south, 27 miles off the coast of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Avangrid Renewables, an Oregon-based company, has already begun planning for a major wind energy farm on 122,000 acres of federal waters, a project that could eventually generate 1.5 gigawatts of electricity.

And about 10 miles off the New Jersey coast, between Atlantic City and Cape May, Danish clean-energy giant Ørsted, which has a large portfolio of offshore wind farms across Europe, is talking with local officials, securing state permits, and doing seafloor surveys on a 160,000-acre site, where it plans to build its 1–gigawatt Ocean Wind project. Company officials say they are hopeful that the wind farm will come online between 2020 and 2025.

This is what happens in a transitional economy. All the big brave tough bullies, Captains of Industry, turn into silly whiny little sissies begging for handouts. Isn’t life interesting. And no, this is not an April Fools Joke.

business cycles —

On Saturday, power corporation FirstEnergy placed its coal and nuclear generation units under chapter 11 bankruptcy. Although coal and nuclear plants across the country have struggled to compete with the low prices of natural gas, FirstEnergy’s filing is unique because it stands to take on a political dimension. Just two days before FirstEnergy’s bankruptcy filing, the company petitioned the Department of Energy (DOE) for an emergency bailout, citing concerns about reliability.

Further Reading

The petition could reinvigorate a debate started by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who proposed a rule last year to change how coal and nuclear plants are compensated for their power. The rule was denied by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which said that there was not enough evidence to justify changing how coal and nuclear are compensated.

FirstEnergy disparaged FERC’s decision in its Thursday petition (PDF), claiming that “as a result of FERC’s and the RTO’s [Regional Transmission Organization’s] failure to address this crisis, swift and decisive action is needed now to address this imminent loss of nuclear and coal-fired baseload generation and the threat to the electric grid that this loss poses” (emphasis FirstEnergy’s).